Video compression is utilized for the transmission and display of video data over a variety of media. Due to uncompressed video data being too large and requiring too much bandwidth for timely transmission and display, video must be compressed in order to be displayed in real time. The video data may be compressed in any of a variety of manners, and different techniques have been utilized for different platforms.
A known manner of video compression is linear, frame-based video compression. This type of video compression is built on the minimizing the amount of data that is needed to reconstruct successive frames. However, such methodologies are highly dependent on predetermined bit rate and resolution constraints. Other video compression techniques utilize optical flow to estimate motion in video data and compressive sampling to reconstruct signals based on data measured at intervals and data assumptions made at non-measured intervals. Further video compression techniques utilize prediction vectors that go beyond traditional frame data, for example using subpixel reconstruction. However, such techniques are inherently reliant on frame data.
With linear, frame-based video compression, a group of pictures forming video data may be grouped, categorized and transmitted. A typical group of pictures has a structure of IBBPBBP, where I frames are intra-coded data, P frames are predictive data, and B frames are bi-predictive data. In such methods, an I frame may represent full data of a frame and is utilized to predict both P and B frames. The P frame is formed entirely from the I frame and, when interpreted with the I frame, is utilized to predict B frames
This known linear, frame-based video compression methodology, however, has problems. Current linear, frame-based video compression methodology may be problematic if any video sequences need to be edited. Also, the editing may require a lot more computer power to carryout. In an IBBPBBP structure, the fourth frame, a P frame, is needed in order to predict the second and third frames, the B frames. Thus, when the compressed video data is transmitted, the P frame is transmitted before the two B frames and, when the video data is uncompressed, it must be reordered so that the B frames are properly displayed before the P frame. As a result, there is a delay in the transmission, decoding and display of video data compressed in this manner. Additionally, due to the wide variety of viewing platforms and screen resolutions, data transmission speeds, and viewing devices, it is inefficient to utilize existing compression techniques. This may also require a lot of computing power to utilize existing compression techniques which may be computationally intensive.